A Bright Soul
by NormanWhitesmith
Summary: Princess Shroob faces the one man that stands in the way of her and her vim harvest to save her species. (Partners in Time AU)


Special thanks to SpaceDimentio for proofreading this and MarioGeek for giving me advice on how to improve this.

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A Bright Soul

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She clenched her hands into a fist. The key to victory was right in front of her physically, yet she couldn't take it. She was solemnly warned against doing anything but look. In front of her was a glowing green ball hovering inside a glass container, emitting light as well as a warm feeling.

"If you weren't hooked up to the life of the stars, you stupid soul," muttered the youngest Shroob princess, "I would destroy you!"

The soul, seemingly sensing the bad intentions of the one holding it, cowered at the other end of the jar away from her. Princess Shroob sighed before looking at the vacant body that the soul had come from. The blue eyes were glassy and lifeless, as they were halfway open and staring at nothing. The body was wearing a long-sleeved green shirt and dark blue denim overalls, covered in blood from the short skirmish it took for a scouting party to take it. It also had disheveled dark brown hair and a black mustache. She had not expected the one fortold to topple the entire empire to look like this.

But the seers were flawless in every prediction. Princess Shroob wasn't going to let pride get in the way of the energy harvest necessary to save their planet. If she went into the invasion headfirst without doing something about the man, it could be fatal for everyone. This was undoubtedly, by the description of the royal seers, the man destined to end her, and by extension, her species. While they had managed to rip the soul of the man from the body, there was one detail holding them back from destroying the soul and washing their hands of the whole matter before continuing on with their planned invasion.

"You're such a weakling, green one, whether you're inside a body or not," Princess Shroob spoke to the entity inside the jar. "I just wish I could crush you right now."

The soul flashed a slight shade of red momentarily, most likely in fear, before continuing to hover around inside the jar.

"Knave!" Princess Shroob screeched suddenly at a small servant by the door, getting impatient that she couldn't do what she did best and extinguish this life. "Get me the scientist and have him explain to me again why I can't just crush this miserable thing."

The servant saluted and ran out the door, shaking fervently as he did. Seconds later, the head scientist entered the room. Seeing the anger of the Shroob princess, the scientist launched straight into the explanation.

"W-well, you see, this man wasn't born naturally and was formed in the stars and is part of what's known as the phenomena of 'star children'. His life is connected to the life of other stars. Destroy this man's life prematurely, and a lot of stars connected to this man will go supernova and create a disaster of Biblical proportions. Their field of destruction will even include our planet. We can't kill him without in essence, falling on our own sword."

Princess Shroob sighed. "So how do we stop this? Can't we just leave the soul out of the body?"

The soul, almost seeming nervous, flickered and cowered at the bottom of the jar.

The scientist shook his head. "I'm afraid not. His soul wouldn't last too long without being attached to his body and the stars would still..." The scientist made an explosion motion with his hands.

"Then is there any way to go through with this, extract the vital vim, and save our species!?! We have the man destined to destroy us right here and yet there seems to be no way to deal with him!"

The scientist adjusted his glasses before walking over to the empty body and examining the limbs. "Well, the seers told of another event... someone on the planet in about two weeks is going to attempt time travel, which will weaken the laws of Space-Time for a very short moment. If we engage the ship's hyper drive at the right time, we can ride on their coattails to the past and perhaps we could try to kill the man when he's younger. His bond with the stars won't be as strong and they will either just disappear or the explosions won't be strong enough to reach our planet. It's a long shot, but seemingly our only one..."

Princess Shroob stared at the soul in front of her, before grabbing and shaking the jar a bit, watching it rattle about and gaining an amused smile on her face.

"Then if we do go through with this crazy plan, what are our chances of success?"

"Nearly nothing, but there's a chance we can alter the flow of time and do this. This is the only planet with vim and this is our only chance at survival."

Princess Shroob thought carefully. "Then knave!" Princess Shroob said much more solemnly to the servant at the door. "Inform my big sister that we have new plans."

The servant saluted before running off. Princess Shroob walked over to the empty body, noticing how desperately the soul was trying to escape the jar. Princess Shroob poked at the man's mustache before picking up an arm and seeing how it bended in certain angles.

"So you say I can't kill him, correct?" asked the princess.

"Indeed."

"Well, can I do," the princess stated before suddenly bending the arm the wrong way and hearing a sickening snap inside, "this?"

"As long as you don't kill him," said the scientist, not caring. They were a species known for their ruthlessness to others that weren't of their kind.

"Good," said Princess Shroob as she quickly moved onto the other arm. "I want him to feel pain for what he's destined to do!"

The broken arms hung oddly at the man's side before Princess Shroob took one of the feet and squeezed her hand as tight as possible, feeling the bones inside crumble under her tight grip.

"And that ought to be enough to teach him," said Princess Shroob, before yelling for some servants to come near. "I want you to take this human and dump him in a field somewhere before putting his soul back inside him. Make sure he doesn't die, but is in pain."

The servants saluted and let down the broken man from the table he was strapped to before taking the soul, which was noticeably dimmer and less active, and carrying both the body and the soul off. Nobody could stop Princess Shroob from saving her species. She was going to harvest the vim of the Toads and nothing could stop her. Not even the green man.

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 _This was just a one shot I thought of one day. To explain some things, Princess Shroob is the secondary ruler of the kingdom and tends to think more than her older sister, which is why she's the focus of this. And also, Luigi would only need to get fixed with one-ups, so the damage is nothing permanent to him. I'll answer any questions people have. I decided to write this because it's different from what I'm mostly writing and I found it interesting. I hope you liked it and please review and leave constructive criticism, as I can always use it. I know that Sally is out there, but I'm not associated with her and I wrote this simply because I wanted to and wouldn't let someone else ruin what I wanted to do. I have nothing else to say, so Norm out. And don't forget, if this is the first day of the rest of our lives, what does that make yesterday?_


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